Assad Hold on Power Tenuous: U.S. Intelligence Official

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that "the best outcome for Syria -- and the region -- is a negotiated political transition to a post-Assad Syria." Photographer: Julia Schmalz/Bloomberg

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
retains only a “tenuous hold” on power after two years of
armed strife as opposition forces have grown more effective,
according to the Pentagon’s top military intelligence official.

Assad’s government “maintains the military advantage --
particularly in firepower and air superiority,” and his inner
circle “appears to be largely cohesive,” Defense Intelligence
Agency Director Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn said in
testimony prepared for delivery later today to the Senate Armed
Services Committee.

Still, the government “continues to struggle with
defections, morale problems and an overall inability to
decisively defeat the opposition,” Flynn said in the remarks
obtained by Bloomberg News. He also said the Syrian military
“is likely stretched thin by constant operations.”

The conflict in Syria, which began in 2011 with peaceful
protests, has escalated into a civil war that has taken at least
70,000 lives and forced hundreds of thousands to flee to
neighboring countries. The U.S. and regional allies, including
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have backed the rebels fighting to oust
Assad while sometimes disagreeing about how to help them.

No opposition group has been able to “unite the diverse
groups behind a strategy for replacing the regime,” Flynn said.

In a television interview late yesterday, Assad reiterated
that his government was engaged in a fight with Muslim
extremists who enjoyed western support.

‘Heart of U.S.’

“Just as the West financed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in its
beginnings and paid dearly for it later, today it’s supporting
it in Syria, Libya and other locations, and will pay a price
later in the heart of Europe and in the heart of the United
States,” Assad told Syria’s al-Ikhbariya TV.

Flynn provides his assessment of Syria’s internal situation
the day after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who’s due to travel
to the Middle East on April 20, appeared before the Armed
Services Committee and heard lawmakers push for a more assertive
U.S. role in the conflict.

Hagel told the lawmakers yesterday that U.S. military
action supporting Syrian opposition forces is an “option of
last resort” that could entangle the U.S. in a lengthy
conflict.

‘Proxy War’

“Military intervention at this point could hinder
humanitarian operations,” Hagel said. “It could embroil the
United States in a significant, lengthy and uncertain military
commitment,” strain international alliances and “have the
unintended consequences of bringing the United States into a
broader regional conflict or proxy war.”

While pledging “to find some way we can do more” to
assist Syrian rebels, Hagel said President Barack Obama hasn’t
asked him for recommendations on military action.

“I believe that the time has come for the United States to
intensify the military pressure on Assad,” Senator Carl Levin
of Michigan, the committee’s Democratic chairman, told Hagel.

Flynn in his prepared testimony said the opposition has
gained control of territory in eastern Syria and along the
northern border with Turkey. Coordination between opposition
groups has improved, “however ties with external groups,
including nominal Free Syrian Army leaders in Turkey are
increasingly strained,” he said.

Committee leaders at yesterday’s hearing renewed calls for
the creation of “safe zones” for rebels opposing Assad and for
moving U.S. Patriot missile batteries in Turkey to the Syrian
border.

Weapons Call

New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, the chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said last week he would
press legislation to let the U.S. provide weapons to the Syrian
opposition. Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, also
called for more military assistance.

Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, said deploying missile batteries would be insufficient
to create viable safe zones because some control of the ground
would be required. He said efforts to arm the rebels are
complicated because the Syrian opposition is poorly organized
and it’s unclear where weapons might end up.

The forces fighting Assad include the Islamist militia
Jabhat al-Nusra, which has aligned itself with al-Qaeda and is
designated a terrorist group by the U.S.

Missile Threat

Flynn in his testimony said Syria’s arsenal of conventional
missiles is “mobile and can reach much of Israel and large
portions of Iraq, Jordan and Turkey from sites well within the
country.”

He said Russia has sold Syria a supersonic anti-ship cruise
missile called the Yakhont, a weapon with a range of 300
kilometers that “poses a major threat to naval operations,
particularly in the eastern Mediterranean.”

Hagel said he ordered the deployment last week of an Army
unit to Jordan to assist Jordanian forces seeking to contain any
violence along the border. He and Dempsey declined to say
whether Assad’s forces used chemical weapons -- a step that
Obama has warned would trigger a U.S. response.